GOVERNMENT BY THE 

PEOPLE 


By Professor Nathaniel Schmidt, of Cornell University 


T here were long periods in human history during which universal 
suffrage would have been inexpedient, and government by the people 
would have been harmful to the best interests of humanity. Advance 
was due not only to individual initiative—as it always has been and always 
will be—but to an initiative backed up by quietly-assumed, or violently- 
asserted, irresponsible authority. 

It was. one of the most important steps forward when the matriarchate 
developed from the early promiscuous habits of the human herd. But it 
implied not only that descent was counted through the female, but also 
that power, not delegated to her except by custom, was exerted by the 
m.other, such as was necessary for the protection of prolonged and helpless 
infancy. 

In spite of man’s hard rule over his wives, the patriarchal organization 
that followed was an improvement on the matriarchate. It invested pater¬ 
nity with responsibility as well as with arbitrary power. When the tribal 
organization based on kinship gave place to city-kingdoms, such as those 
of early Greece and Rome, this involved the assumption of greater power 
on the part of the ruler, but it was necessary in order to break down the 
tribal organization, and to enlarge the basis of fellowship. 

The sense of common interests and of a responsibility shared by all 
citizens produced the republic. In Europe men learned to use the ballot. 
At first the franchise was limited to a few families. The whole develop¬ 
ment, however, in the Greek republics, as well as in Rome, was in the 
direction of a gradual extension of the suffrage to a larger number of fa'mi- 
lies, from an oligarchy to a democracy. Yet the idea of a universal man¬ 
hood suffrage was totally foreign to classical antiquity. Its civilization 
rested on a deep substratum of slavery. This failure to recognize the 
human worth and the potential value as citizens of masses of enslaved men 
was at once the condition of the marvelous growth of these republics and 
the cause of their downfall. 

The empires of Alexander and Caesar, though reared by arrogant 
assumption and based on usurped power, served to weld together men of 
different tribes, different speech, customs and religious views. They broad¬ 
ened the foundations of citizenship. For this the centralization of power 
v/as historically indispensable. But men continued to ballot for their pub¬ 
lic servants. The Roman empire held the loyalty of its citizens not only 
by the order and security it gave, but also by the large measure of local 
autonomy it granted. 

Such government by the people as had developed within the pale of 
Graeco-Roman civilization, though necessarily restricted in many ways, 
did not wholly disappear as the leadership passed to the Germanic nations. 
The great contribution of the Middle Ages was feudalism. It meant, in 




2 


GOVERNMENT BY THE PEOPLE 


State and church, a relation of mutual responsibility, of loyalty and chiv¬ 
alry, which furnished the basis of a truer democracy, destined to come in 
course of time. It could not appear, however, without the growth of an 
aristocracy of wealth, taking its place by the side of knighthood and 
clergy. Increased economic capacity and secular education led again to the 
republic, in Northern Italy and in Holland. But it was the aristocratic 
republic. 

The great movements of the Reformation period, putting the choice of 
their pastors into the hands of the laity, paved the way for an extension of 
the political suffrage. The American Revolution recognized in principle 
manhood suffrage, yet did not fully trust it, and introduced many checks 
upon the expression of the will of the people, besides limiting the franchise 
to the whites. The French Revolution enfranchised the third estate. The 
history of Europe during the nineteenth century has recorded a steady 
growth in the direction of universal manhood suffrage. 

It is well, however, to bear in mind the objections that have been 
raised against this extension of the full rights of citizenship to a larger 
number of men. It has been opposed, not only by selfish persons unwilling 
to concede to others privileges they themselves value, but by many earnest 
and disinterested souls out of a regard for the highest interests of society. 
The grounds have been chiefiy lack of intelligence, of military ability, of 
economic capacity, of political experience and high ideals, of moral train¬ 
ing, and of general fitness to belong to the governing class. 

Let it be freely admitted that there was a deal of justice in. these ob¬ 
jections. How is it possible to have an intelligently-managed society, if it 
•is ruled by ignorant and illiterate mobs, unable to read the lessons of his¬ 
tory, or to form a judgment on the many questions that require wide obser¬ 
vation and careful thinking? It is indeed a serious question whether any 
State has a right to confide its interests to men who cannot read and write, 
particularly if it is civilized enough to offer to all its citizens opportunities 
to acquire these rudiments of knowledge. There was a time when the 
great mass of men had no education, and when it would have been ques¬ 
tionable wisdom to give a vote to an illiterate multitude. 

It was once a legitimate and necessary part of the duties of a citizen 
to defend his city or State against attacks by enemies. Every community 
was in danger from every other community, every nation from every other 
nation. The patriot who loved the place where he was born, the language 
spoken by his fathers, the temples of his gods, and the precious posses¬ 
sions of his people, must be ready to defend with his life the walls of his 
native town or the boundaries of the State. If he had no military training, 
or was of a spirit so mean and cowardly that he would not protect his 
home, what right had he to a voice in matters affecting the public welfare? 
Might it not be justly feared that masses of men without military knowl¬ 
edge of martial spirit would, if endowed with power, put in jeopardy the 
noble achievements of centuries? 

The same earnest question would naturally be raised in regard to the 
great mass of economically-dependent and incapable men, the slaves while 
slavery lasted, the unskilled laborers, the proletariat. What would become 
of man’s richest treasures, the creations of art, the institutes of science, 
the temples of justice and of mercy, the homes of gentle manners and 
refined tastes, if the powers and prerogatives of a class that slowly, in the 
course of centuries, built these monuments of advancing civilization, were 
to be given to mobs, lashed with hunger, weary with toil, smarting with a 
sense of social injustice, envious of the well-to-do, resentful of long oppres¬ 
sion, greedy for a place at the festive board, with no higher ideal than that 


GOVERNMENT BY THE PEOPLE 


3 


of filling the stomach, and no deeper craving than that for revenge? What 
irretrievable losses, what destructions by fire and by sword, what lamenta¬ 
ble orgies of vengeance have marked those upheavals in history when they 
v/ho possessed nothing, by a sudden turn of the wheel of fortune, became 
masters of men who had possessions and valued them! 

No class of men, unaccustomed to the exercise of the franchise, un¬ 
familiar with political methods and administrative affairs, without high 
ideals, comprehensive aims, and experience in shouldering responsibility, 
even though they be upright and honorable, can, by the simple act of 
enfranchisement, be endued with the wisdom necessary to safeguard the 
varied interests of society. But ignorance, defencelessness, poverty, and 
dependence are not conducive to the virtues most needed in a citizen. The 
very fact that such vast differences existed in the natural qualifications for 
citizenship, sometimes still further enhanced by the undeniable racial 
inferiority of the toiling masses, tended to justify the prevailing concep¬ 
tion of society as necessarily divided into two classes, one born to rule 
and to command, another born to labor and to obey. Yet, in spite of all 
these objections, the suffrage has been extended from decade to decade 
during the last century, until at present there are a number of countries in 
Europe and America where the principle of manhood suffrage is fully recog¬ 
nized, and every civilized country in the world is striving toward this goal. 

Why has this been done? Why has not the result been disastrous? 
Why has no country which has tried the experiment ever returned to the 
limited suffrage of earlier times? Because the grounds for the objections 
raised have themselves been removed. In some countries, there is today 
no illiteracy at all. In all civilized lands the number of men who cannot 
read and write is dwindling fast. Our education may not be all that we 
could desire, may indeed be very far from ideal. But the opportunities for 
acquiring such knowledge as is of prime importance to the citizen are prac¬ 
tically open to all, and have been used in such a manner as to increase 
marvellously the political intelligence of the long-disfranchised classes. 

Military prowess, once indispensable, is no longer a necessity. The 
city walls, once deemed so needful, have been torn down everywhere— 
almost too fast to satisfy the archeologist—because they were useless and 
in the way, since communities ceased to fight one another. Millions of 
men lead useful lives and render distinguished services to the State at the 
present time without ever killing anything but a mosquito now and then. 
No one is pusillanimous enough to propose a limitation of the suffrage 
to policemen, soldiers, butchers and hunters, on the ground that a man 
cannot be expected to vote intelligently on the tariff or the disposal of 
garbage unless he has killed his man or stalked his beast. Arbitration is 
fast taking the place of the resort to arms, and the nations will soon have 
to get rid of their useless war truck, just as the communities got rid of 
their walls and cannons. 

The abolition of slavery and serfdom everywhere, the industrial revo¬ 
lution, the formation of syndicates of trade, the organization of laborers in 
all trades, and the manifold applications of science in production and dis¬ 
tribution have so increased the economic capacity of millions of men that 
it is no longer possible to object to universal suffrage on this ground. It 
has been seen that great masses of men, earning their own living by the 
labor of their hands, and attached to their homes and their families, have, 
when enfranchised, used their votes for public improvements, as well as for 
measures tending to improve the condition of the poor. 

Given a primary education and opportunities, even though they be lim¬ 
ited, of reading books and journals, seeing dramas, and taking part in 


4 


GOVERNMENT BY THE PEOPLE 


discussion of vital questions in clubs and societies, there is the possibility 
of a most effective preparation for full citizenship, and for the develop¬ 
ment of political ideals undimmed as yet by moral compromise. 

Partly as a result of this amelioration of social conditions, there has 
come a profound change in the conception of society itself. No longer is 
the social organism regarded as composed of two essentially different ele¬ 
ments, of the rulers and the ruled, but rather as a body with many func¬ 
tions. The functionaries are not looked upon as lords, but as servants, 
responsible to the’ people. The public affairs are administered by agents, 
and the demand is increasingly heard that these shall not only be repre¬ 
sentative men, but executors of the definitely-indicated will of the people. 
Another result of the growth of civilization is a changed idea as to the 
latent possibilities in every human life, and the duties of society in view 
of these. The power of environment, rather than the accident of birth, is 
allowed to determine destiny, and with universal education inferiority tends 
to become an individual rather than a racial characteristic. All the 
grounds against the extension of suffrage to adult males having been thus 
removed, the objections have gone for naught. 

During the last sixty years, a further extension of the suffrage, beyond 
the limits of adult manhood, has been agitated. Efforts have been made, 
and not without success, to secure the right of the ballot for women. The 
objections raised against this reform are precisely the same as those urged 
in the case of every proposed extension of the suffrage. Not a single new 
argument has been produced. It is the lack of education, of military train¬ 
ing, economic capacity, political experience, moral and mental equality 
with the already-enfranchised citizens, and general fitness to belong to the 
governing class, that have been presented, with emphasis shifting from 
one to another of these supposed deficiencies. 

There was, indeed, a time when woman, as a rule, received no educa¬ 
tion, and as a consequence lacked the training and knowledge desirable in 
a citizen. Her function in life was supposed to be to bear children and to 
bring them up, to prepare food, and make garments, and wash lineii, and 
keep the house in order and the husband in good humor; and for trivial 
matters like these, an education was not regarded as a necessity. De¬ 
prived of the opportunities given to her brothers, she was ill prepared for 
the exercise of the serious functions of citizenship. But it ought not to be 
necessary today to call attention to the patent fact that this condition has 
absolutely changed. There are as many girls as there are boys in our 
primary and secondary schools, and the number of young women in our 
colleges and universities is constantly increasing, and approaching the num¬ 
ber of young men. It may not be needless, however, to observe that, among 
the opponents of the extension to women of the privileges of education, 
there were not only men but also sweet, womanly women, who feared that 
an education would make the girls less attractive, less graceful, less capa¬ 
ble about the house, physically degenerate and morally pervert. This 
superstition dies hard, and lingers on like a shadow in the prejudice in 
favor of a conventual life as against the natural and normal scheme of 
co-education. It would be easier today to base an argument for the dis¬ 
franchisement of a considerable part of the male population on their evident 
lack of intelligence than to oppose woman’s suffrage on the ground of her 
record in the field of education. 

As long as no community could live without fighting, and no man’s life 
was safe unless he was a fighter, there was some justice in the claim that 
man, the protector, and not woman, the protected, should have a determin¬ 
ing influence upon the policies of the State. In our ordinary Occidental 
society, woman is quite as capable of taking care of herself as man is, and 


GOVERNMENT BY THE PEOPLE 


5 


man is, ordinarily, no more called upon to fight than woman is. Fighting 
is, fortunately, becoming so small and unimportant a part of life that the 
question whether a man or a woman knows how to use a rifle is perfectly 
irrelevant. If it is feared that women as voters will do away altogether 
with the barbarous practice of warfare, this would be an additional reason 
for giving them the suffrage. 

The economic dependence of woman no doubt constituted for a long 
time a strong argument against enfranchisement. How could a wife de¬ 
pendent upon her husband’s bounty, or an adult daughter eating her 
father’s bread, be expected to act according to her own judgment in polit¬ 
ical matters? And, having been brought up in the idea that she might 
hang around the parlor making herself agreeable until some suitable suitor 
should appear and carry her off, what kind of political judgment would she 
be likely to develop? Millions of hard-worked women have, indeed, amply 
earned their living, but the law entrusted their husbands or fathers with 
the privilege of cashing and spending what these women earned. Thou¬ 
sands of women whose gentle breeding and social graces have made them 
most valuable members of the communities where they resided, have lived 
in galling economic dependence upon men. 

In this respect, the change that has taken place is most significant. 
Millions of women are today earning their living, and are paid for their 
work. According to the latest statistics, there are in the United States 
about five million women who are wage-earners. They may not always get 
what they are worth. They are still, in numerous instances, paid less for 
the same kind of work than men are. But they support themselves with 
their own hands or brains, and are not supported by men. Aside from 
these, there are millions of wives whose economic status is vastly im¬ 
proved, and who, under the present economic conditions, are not doomed 
to starve, if not supported by their husbands, and whose right to inde¬ 
pendent use of money earned by them is more or less cheerfully granted. 
Hundreds of thousands of women are taxed for real estate or personal 
property, and all are in one sense taxpayers. This economic revolution 
has absolutely removed the ground upon which an objection could once 
be raised against woman suffrage. We are forced to recognize the fact 
that, with all our vaunted democracy, we are willing to tax some fifteen 
millions of our fellow-citizens who are productive laborers and add to the 
nation’s wealth, but are not willing to give them the right to say how these 
taxes shall be spent. This is to say, gloss over the ugly circumstance as 
much as you please, we are untrue to the fundamental principle of govern¬ 
ment by the people, in which we glory. 

It seems like adding insult to injury to charge against woman political 
inexperience, while carefully excluding her from the exercise of political 
privileges. If she has been indifferent to public interests, if she has failed 
to inform herself about them, it should in ^11 fairness be admitted that she 
has not been given much encouragement. Her political ideals no doubt 
have suffered. Such ideals are born of long and earnest refiection on the 
teachings of history, the evils of present conditions, and the upward ten¬ 
dencies in human society. They are none too plentiful among men, though 
the great Utopias have been dreams of men, and the great reforms, in¬ 
cluding woman suffrage, have been first proposed by men. It is quite possi¬ 
ble, and has occasionally happened, that women, accustomed to hold the 
family purse strings and to count carefully every penny, have as voters 
opposed even necessary improvements, on account of a small addition to 
the tax-rate. Such “penny-wisdom and pound-foolishness’’ on the part of 
women may, however, be a desirable offset against the recklessness of 
many men in voting large appropriations, and in meeting the needs of to- 


6 


GOVERNMENT BY THE PEOPLE 


day by mortgages on the future, to be paid by coming generations. And 
this conservatism has not prevented women from taking a most active 
part in the demands for proper sanitation, school facilities, and improved 
conditions of labor. 

It is feared by some that woman as a voter would be inclined to exer¬ 
cise a petty tyranny over men, to re-enact antiquated sumptuary laws, to 
curtail the reasonable liberties of citizens. Whatever ground there may 
have been for such a fear in the past, it may be doubted whether women 
today are fonder of unnecessary and artificial restrictions than men are, 
since the tastes of men and women are, after all, so similar, and an increase 
rather than a decrease of personal liberty is likely to be the result of 
general education and universal political responsibility. 

On the question of woman’s moral fitness for the franchise, more sin¬ 
cerity and discrimination seem to be needed than at times characterize 
the discussion. Men declare, with fulsome flattery, that women are angels, 
paragons of virtue, too pure to mix with men in politics; or they cynically 
suggest that every woman has her price, and that political life would be¬ 
come rotten were she given a vote. Women, on the other hand, allow 
themselves to speak, in a self-satisfied manner and without the slightest 
tremor of shrinking modesty, concerning the moral superiority of woman, 
and of man as without any morality at all. Such statements are, of course, 
palpably absurd. Lump judgments of this sort are not conducive to peace 
and progress. Women discount the flattery, and men the abuse. Where, 
is the evidence carefully weighed, where the statistics conscientiously 
sifted, by which it is possible to arrive at such conclusions as regalrds one- 
half of the human race or the other? I do not know whether women tell 
fewer fibs than men, whether they have a keener sense of honor, whether 
they are more temperate in language, whether they take larger views of 
life, whether they are more merciful in imputing motives, whether they are 
more independent in their judgment, whether they are more ready to admit 
their errors, whether they have more moral courage. The proportion of 
male or female prisoners in our penitentiaries does not settle these ques¬ 
tions for me. 

There are thousands of us who have every reason in the world to be 
grateful for the mothers who bore us, and the wives who stand by our 
side, and the daughters who have been given to us. But there are also 
thousands of men who have cause for thinking with sorrow and shame of 
those who brought them into the world, and with grief of their wives and 
daughters. What is the use of talking of all women as angels, and of all 
men as devoid of morality? We know it is not so. There is in both sexes 
the same mixture of good and evil. My own impression is that there are 
some moral qualities, needful in a citizen, that are more marked in women, 
and that there are other moral qualities, equally necessary, that are more 
marked in men. There are some virtues in which woman excels, and there 
are some other virtues in which man excels. It will probably be seen, in 
the long run, that neither morally nor mentally is woman man’s inferior, 
nor yet his superior. They supplement each other; and the wisdom and 
virtue of both should be available in the direction and management of all 
public as well as private concerns. We shall thus have more of the mor¬ 
ality of the manly man in woman, and more of the morality of the womanly 
woman in man, and more of the perfect type of humanity expressing itself 
in the citizen’s vote. 

Finally, it is said that there is one sphere in which man moves, and 
another in which woman moves, and that the privilege of commanding falls 
within man’s sphere, while in woman’s sphere the chief duty is to obey. 


GOVERNMENT BY THE PEOPLE 


7 


My friend. Dr. Lyman Abbott, ^characterizes the modern attempt to draw 
woman out of the sphere within which she formerly lived, and to endow her 
with the political rights of a citizen, as “An Assault upon Womanhood.” 
The casting of a ballot being tantamount to a command, he sees in the very 
nature of this exercise something that absolutely prevents a woman from 
having anything to do with it. For “How could a woman command a man?” 
It should be granted that it is not a pleasant thing to contemplate, though 
by no means so uncommon as Dr. Abbott seems to think. But is it really 
a more gratifying spectacle to see a man ordering a woman about? The 
former has at least its amusing side; the latter is scarcely ever anything 
but disgusting. The management of a public concern, even though it in¬ 
volve the organization and direction of a large force of workers, whether 
by a man or by a woman, has nothing to do with that assertion of personal 
authority over another which we naturally find so revolting, whoever may 
exercise it. It is difficult for men of the passing generation to realize how- 
fast the old conception of society as made up of commanders and obedient 
servants is vanishing, or to understand the new conception that is taking 
its place, that of a self-governing people. 

Where a people really governs itself, its citizens regard it not only as 
an inestimable privilege, but as a duty, to inform themselves on all ques¬ 
tions of vital importance to the growth and welfare of the commonwealth, 
to express their maturest convictions as to the measures that should be 
taken, and the representatives that should be chosen, at the ballot box, 
and to accept and discharge in an honorable manner every function 
assigned to them by their fellow-citizens. He is not a good citizen who 
shirks his duties as a voter, or refuses to render such services as he can 
to the public. Nor is she a good citizen who declines to leave the cloistered 
shelter of her home to work for the welfare of other homes, refuses to 
unite with her fellows to maintain in purity and efficiency the government 
of the people by the people, and petulantly cries, “Why thrust upon me. new 
burdens?” rather than nobly answering the call to duty, “Show me what 
service I can render to the State and to humanity, and I shall gladly do 
my part.” Mankind will ever gratefully remember those pioneers who, with 
little hope of ever seeing themselves the day of 'triumph, dedicated their 
lives to the cause of. woman’s suffrage, stood bravely in the thick of the 
fight when ignorance and prejudice and stupidity hurled their shafts, 
worked peaceably year in and year out, their message falling to all appear¬ 
ances on a listless world, sowed their precious seed of liberty and equality, 
and left behind the illustrious example of unselfish devotion to a reform 
affecting half of the human race. 

The power of governing ourselves, as individuals, as States, and as a 
human family, has gradually grown in the course of the ages. Government 
of the people by some of the people, whether they were monarchs, aristo¬ 
crats, or male electors, had its historic justification, as long as absolutism, 
oligarchy or manhood suffrage best served the interest of the people. The 
conditions, however, have changed, and the present world-movement for 
the enfranchisement of woman shows that, under the infiuence of advanc¬ 
ing civilization, the nations of the earth are becoming ready for universal 
suffrage and the conception of society which it implies. For, in the 
ultimate analysis, it is not the extension of political rights to the last dis¬ 
franchised class, important as this is, that is so deeply significant in this 
movement, nor even the fact that this class consists of women, but the 
new sense of social possibilities which it betokens.—Address at the Ontario 
County Woman Suffrage Convention at Phelps, N. Y., May 24, 1909. 




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GOVERNMENT BY THE PEOPLE. 

“Government By the People” may be ordered from 
the National Suffrage Headquarters, 505 Fifth Av¬ 
enue, New York City. Price, two copies for 5 cents, 
or $1.50 per 100, postpaid. 


WOMAN SUFFRAGE LEAFLETS. 

Send 10 cents in stamps to the National Suffrage 
Headquarters, 505 Fifth Avenue, New York City, for 
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PROGRESS. 

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THE WOMAN’S JOURNAL. 

For suffrage news, read The Woman’s JKDurnal, 
edited by Alice Stone Blackwell, published weekly 
at 6 Beacon Street, Boston, Mass., Room 1018. 
Three months on trial, 25 cents; per year, $1.50. 









